[Detroit.CBSLocal] It would no doubt be controversial, but the idea of dissolving the fiscally struggling city of Detroit and absorbing it into Wayne County is being tossed around in Lansing.

Does Wayne County want it?

WWJ Lansing Bureau Chief Tim Skubick reports some state Republicans are talking about giving the city the option to vote itself into bankruptcy. And mid-Michigan Senator Rick Jones said all options should be considered -- including dissolving the city.

"If we have to, that is one idea we have to look at. We really have to look at everything that is on the table," Jones said. "Again, if this goes to federal bankruptcy, every employee down there will suffer, the city will suffer and the vultures will come in and take the jewels of Detroit and they will be gone."

Local consultant Tom Watkins has proposed this in the past, but the idea has never played well among Detroiters.

In a live interview on WWJ Newsradio 950 Wednesday morning, Gov. Rick Snyder said he wouldn't count anything out.

"Detroit needs to solve their problems, but they need support and we've been very supportive partners, I believe, in terms of offering different ideas and thoughts. And I just encourage them to work harder about working better together," Snyder said.

Talking to Talk Radio 1270 host Charlie Langton, Detroit's ex-communications chief Karen Dumas said she would not support such a plan.

"No, I don't think that dissolution is the solution for the city of Detroit; I don't," said Dumas. "I think people ... with every step we get more and more fearful ... and maybe at some point that's going to make everybody wake up and realize that we need to stop playing politics and come up with a solution for progress. "I don't know at what point that's going to happen. "

#3
Only in Detroit: In town for his ongoing federal racketeering trial in U.S. District Court, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick tweeted that he caught a guy breaking into a house on the same street as his mother's, former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

"Dude breaking into a house on Moms street," he tweeted around 8 p.m.

"Hey get out there," Kilpatrick yelled.

The would-be burglar apparently was stunned by the person giving the orders.

#4
Editorial from Detroit News:Hard to know which is more stunning  the dysfunction of Detroit's political class and their paymasters in the city's unions or the denial embedded in their posturing and public statements. And all of it comes wrapped in rhetoric dripping with the same sense of entitlement that Detroit's auto industry regularly manufactured right up to its collapse four years ago.

A current favorite from Ed McNeil, assistant to the president of AFSCME Local 25: "If we get them out of here"  "them" being appointees answerable to the state Treasury Department  "we won't be broke."

Really? It's that simple? Bounce the interlopers imported from Lansing, revert to business as usual, restore wage and benefit cuts, cancel restructuring plans and tax revenues and credit ratings will magically reverse their steady downward trajectory? So easy, that.

#10
Arresting decay is very costly and for what reason? We seldom learn anything from history, so let it go. Reforestation and reestablishing animal habitats are probably the right courses of action. Within 50-60 years wood frame structures will have collapsed with only the foundations remaining. There may be some commercial value in harvesting used brick and scrap iron. Gaia will manage it properly until future generations have a valid need for it.

#11
Part of this is to absorb it into Wayne County.
The folks in the county aren't pleased. In fact, I think they're terrified. Imagine spreading Detroititis to the innocent surrounding municipalities.

#13
The Michigan state legislature did pass laws to impose emergency management on the city of Detroit to get a handle on the situation by, among other things, throwing out union contracts in a step short of bankruptcy or dissolution.
The electorate of the state of Michigan in their wisdom (/sarc) THREW OUT this legislation in a referendum.
Now the state government has fewer & more drastic options, as mentioned.
By voting for that referendum, the entire state bought into the coming disaster. They own whatever awful situation Detroit will now get not. Got to protect those public unions, no matter what.

#21
Strohs was a decent brew as I recall but then it is a matter of taste. I was born in Detroitistan years ago. So when asked "place of birth" what does one say if Detroit is dissolved? Does it put you on a TSA watch list if you respond with "Detroit?" How about "Southeast Territory of Michigan?" Wayne County? "Born in what is former Detroit?" Or just silently curse the greedy corruptocrats (politicians, unions, etc.) of every stripe who fed at the public trough and caused this?

#23
My dad was a Wayne County guy back in the day. Transferred from Wayne high to Ypsi where he met my mom. Pegged jeans, white suede shoes and a DA. He was base vocal for the Dynamics...even played the Apollo. They moved to CA just prior to my birth. A day doesn't go by where I thank God they did. Breaks my mom's heart to see what has become of that once great city and it's surrounds.
Oh and Stroh's was terrible. Guaranteed case of the runs each and every time.

#28
Buy up the foreclosed homes and properties selling for a $1 and get them off the market.

Strike most laws from the books (including welfare) and become an American version of Hong Kong. If the folks leave to collect their welfare elsewhere so be it. Detroit can be rebuilt but the current government/paradigm is not going to do it.

#31
Rex - Wayne Memorial High. Not exactly Detroit but close enough. Both my parents went there. My Step-Father went to St. Mary's Commercial High (pretty sure that was the one)Many, many, moons ago...His old neighborhood (once polish and italian) is not even recognizable today. Where his house stood is a vacant lot.

#34
When the Romans destroyed a city they then plowed salt in the agricultural land around the city, so that it could not be re-inhabited. See Cartage.
Surely since the Dems have destroyed Detroit it must now be time they salted it as well.

#36
Bh6: I hear ya. Went back for grandma's funeral some years ago. We toured around the the old homesteads like strangers. Afterwards we went to Rick's in Ann Arbor, got tanked and ran the pool tables for several hours. Haven't been back since.

#40
No worries Mullah..and it was an honor. The Drifters hired em as an opening act for some gigs and Mr Gordy even gsve em a song to record. Not bad for a bunch of white boys who were still in or just out of high school.

The thing is Detroit was a powerhouse, a national treasure and the industrial engine thay helped speed victory in WWII. It's sad decline is an endictment of progressive politics and their parastic ways.

#4
#1 ...never get sick of public displays of Left falling back upon the exercise of power in absence of principles they shove down others throats. Truth to Power my eye. Most anything that punches through the false mask the Ministry of Truth erects over their party of 'tolerance' has value. We are told to suck up to stuff like Christ in Piss as art for whatever rationalization they deemed appropriate. Go Alinsky on them - Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules and Ridicule is mans most potent weapon.

#5
I don't know. After bammy being crucified on the draperies I think it is a simple, powerful, clear point. The great looming question is how much would it have gove for?

*Nobody has yet touched on artistically the barry on curtains piece. No, the execution is decent...especially considering the painter is not Boticelli and the subject no Venus, it is good to see that there are artists who can still paint figures and forms other than snakes and slatters. No, its the compostition - the message is obvious, placing the crown of thorns is some 1st year art school mistake crap. Its like watching a pro quarterback underhand pass the ball downfield, or ordering the hottest of the hot wings on the menu, then dashing tobasco on top of them just to show everyone else in the restaurant that them wings are hot (though other customers can see/smell/feel the ghost chili wings the eater is making a childish flamboyant gesture just in case you didn't get it).

Its a pandering simpletons accessory to the compost. Now, if that was the point that can be discussed. I would love to ask the arteeest that question.

#10
Barbara, you have a way of cutting to the nub of the matter. Political correctness would dictate you refer to Pee Pee Mo. Probably get you beheaded in muslime countries regardless of what terms you use. They just can't take a joke.

House Republicans said on Thursday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a detailed proposal to avert the year-end fiscal crisis with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, an immediate new round of stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits.

The proposal, loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts, was likely to meet strong Republican resistance. In exchange for locking in the $1.6 trillion in added revenues, President Obama embraced $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other entitlements, to be worked out next year, with no guarantees.

He did propose some upfront cuts in programs like farm price supports, but did not specify an amount or any details. And senior Republican aides familiar with the offer said those initial spending cuts might well be outnumbered by upfront spending increases, including at least $50 billion in infrastructure spending, mortgage relief, an extension of unemployment insurance and a deferral of automatic cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare.

The Democrats have yet to get serious about real spending cuts, Mr. Boehner said after the meeting. No substantive progress has been made in the talks between the White House and the House over the last two weeks.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

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